


make it up as we go along

by lavenderseaslug



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, five times fic, slime puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderseaslug/pseuds/lavenderseaslug
Summary: Five times Roman calls Gerri.And one time she calls him.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 18
Kudos: 160





	make it up as we go along

**Author's Note:**

> _The less we say about it the better  
>  Make it up as we go along  
> Feet on the ground, head in the sky_  
> \- "This Must Be the Place" - Talking Heads

**one.**

Training is miserable. Fucking miserable and boring and they don’t have good breakfast. It’s all day old croissants that somebody sneezed on and cold coffee that’s been reheated five times. And the chairs. The chairs aren’t comfortable. Managers have the most comfortable chairs and everyone else should have to sit on fucking stools and that’s how it should work. Wicker stools. Maybe splinters up the ass. 

There’s another stupid video, another recording of his father reading from a script. Roman can see how his eyes flick back and forth across the cue cards. He couldn’t tell you what the video is about. He wasn’t even invited to the taping, not for this one. But there’s minging Kendall, all tight lipped and stiff, like a giant fucking pole is stuck up his huge giant asshole. Roman doesn’t know if he looks stupider with facial hair or not. At least Connor isn’t in the video. At least Shiv isn’t.

He wishes he had something to do with his hands. He fiddles with a pen but fucking Brian takes it away, touches Roman to make him stop moving, touches him with his own hand that he probably didn’t even wash after he took a shit. Gerri’s face comes up on the screen, some screed about lawsuits and liabilities that he’s heard from her a thousand times. A million times. He watches the way her lips move. The way they twist around the words. The way her voice is gentle and serious. The way it slices through him.

She’s seen him with diapers around his fucking ankles, and she probably has wrinkled tits but all he can think about is her gasp on the other end of the phone. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound surprised. 

The instructor is saying something at the front of the room, like an MBA qualifies him to teach anything when all he’s ever done is this. Roman doesn’t know one single person who _doesn’t_ have an MBA. Probably Willa has a freaking MBA, bought and paid for by Connor. Willa might do a better job teaching this course. It’s all bullshit anyway, just something for Roman to point to and say he tried.

They have to sketch out a sample office space that would be conducive for both employees and managers. Roman draws a wicker chair, hash lines drawn. He ignores Brian when he says something about an open office plan, no walls anywhere. The dumbest idea any company ever came up with. Fucking California start-ups and their egalitarian fucking ideals. 

He tells Gerri that when he calls her later. Calls her like she’s asked him to check in with her about his progress. Calls her like she cares about him. He wonders if she cares about anything. Probably her two daughters. Maybe her dead husband. 

“As if like Royco’s fucking glass walls aren’t almost as bad as an open floor plan. Can’t even take a shit in my office without people staring.” He’s staring out the window as if there was something to look at. He misses being in a city, of going blank while lights flash by on the street below.

“Why would you take a shit in your office, Roman?” Her weary-sounding voice is crisp, she pronounces every word like some grammar school teacher, glasses perched on the end of her nose. He had a crush on the librarian at that fancy, stick-up-the-ass private school he went to. Gerri reminds him of her. 

“It’s more like, now I _can’t_ shit in my office. That whole forbidden fruit tastes sweeter fucking parable or whatever.” He wonders how long he has to keep up the pretense of this being a normal phone call. 

Gerri doesn’t say anything, just silence on the phone, he can hear the muffled sounds of the TV, and he guesses that’s all right because what does any person say to a statement like that. He spends half his life trying to say the outrageous thing just so people will shut the hell up, and now the one person he wants to keep talking doesn’t know what to do with him. 

“Anyway.” He reaches for something to say, his mind moving a mile a minute, a fishing line cast into a fast-flowing creek, not always making a catch. “I was thinking…” Maybe it’s best to be direct, to just fucking go after what he wants, make a grab for that shitty brass ring. “About the call that we had last time.” 

He hears the sound of Gerri moving around on her couch, can’t picture her really, beyond the light hair, tucked behind her ear, the reflection of the television on her glasses. He wonders what color her couch is. He wonders why it matters. “What about it?” she asks, and he supposes it’s better than a hang-up, but it feels excruciating to have to put words to the throbbing of his cock. 

“Uh,” he manages, because that’s all he can get out. He’s just thinking about her and replaying her voice in his mind and he can’t come up with words of his own. 

“You’re pathetic,” she says, and he doesn’t know if she’s mad or if she’s doing what he wants her to do, what he is too afraid to ask for. What she wants to do too. Gerri doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to, and he’s known that his whole goddamn life. 

“Yeah?” He’s afraid to ask for more, to be the dog that gets its nose slapped. But he can already feel the uncomfortable press of his dick against his pants. Fucking wool pants that cost too much and he thinks he’s a little allergic to them and who wears wool in Florida. 

“Yeah,” she mimics back, and he can imagine the little snarl of her lips, the accusatory look in her eyes. He fumbles with his belt buckle, his hands shaky, fingers moving faster than his brain. Like he’s fifteen again, in the attic of the summer house with the maid’s daughter. “Late night phone calls you’re too afraid to make in broad daylight, can’t even ask for what you want.” He can’t hear the television through the phone anymore, like she has to focus on the task at hand. 

The thought makes his dick twitch against his hand. To be the recipient of Gerri’s focus. “Uh-huh,” he agrees, because she’s right. She’s always right. His pants are at his ankles, his boxers bulging, and he’s only ever been this hard for her. 

“Whatever’s swinging beneath your legs is working harder than your brain ever does.” He lays back on the bed, too soft and somehow to creaky and if this is what the guests of any Waystar park have to sleep on, it’s no wonder the satisfaction surveys are so low. He contemplates telling Gerri that now, makes his mouth stop for five seconds instead.

HIs hands move as her voice does, the peaks and valleys of her tone, the sharp points of the consonants. He can imagine her lips saying “shoe gum little fuck,” can imagine the way her mouth moves around the words. He can’t even remember what Tabitha’s mouth looks like right now. Or ever. It’s pink. Probably. 

“What else?” he pants, because Gerri paused, and he can’t fill the silence, feels himself shrinking at the thought of being alone with himself again. Somehow it’s her voice, her words, that can drown him out. 

“You’ll never amount to a goddamn thing,” she says, and he thinks there’s truth to her words. Something about her ability to say the things that lurk in the back alleys of his mind, the things everyone else thinks. That’s the power. “Not until you can grab more than your _dick_ and not until you spout more than semen.” He makes a guttural noise as he comes, and the only thing after that is the sound of Gerri hanging up the phone.

**two.**

As far as business meetings go, this one is terrible. It’s at some stupid coffee bar in Manhattan where people just go to take photos for Instagram and Roman can’t even remember his handle most days. He’s not even sure why he’s at this meeting, how this meeting got arranged, why there’s a petite blonde woman batting her eyes at him across the table while she talks about dividends and stock options. 

He told his driver to take the afternoon off, that he’ll walk back to the office, or figure out the subway system, doesn’t even have the excuse of a waiting car to jump into. And the coffee is cold, like the barista spent too much fucking time drawing a portrait of Frida Kahlo in it to serve it hot. He wishes it was Frankenthaler in his coffee instead. Or that his coffee didn’t have foam at all. His hands fidget with the paper napkin under his mug, his thoughts straying to his phone. 

“So, what do you think?” Jane or Margaret or whoever the fuck is across the table from him asks, and all he can do is blink five times, real fast, while he tries to remember anything she actually said. 

“I have to, uh, answer this phone call,” he says, holding up his phone that is not ringing, shoulders hunching, standing from the table. She’s got a smile on her face but Roman can tell it’s fake, plastered on, and she’d kick him in the nuts if she could. He first saw that expression on Shiv’s face when she was five, and she really did kick him in the nuts. Not for nothing, he learns from experience. 

There’s an empty space near the front of the coffee shop that’s not outside but not really inside and he calls Gerri, because she’s his most recent call, because he thinks she might actually like him. Not, like, friends or anything. But she tolerates him, and that’s more than she gives most people. 

“What is it?” she asks, answering on the second ring. Maybe it’s nice they’ve moved past hellos and other normal greetings. 

“I need a ride,” he says, feels his shoulders hunching even more, his whole body bending at the idea of asking for something. His free hand shoves in his pocket, a fist clenching because this is the kind of shit he hates, asking for favors. 

“I’m not an Uber,” she says, but there’s a resigned quality to her voice and he thinks that means she’s going to come get him. 

“My, uh, Uber account is suspended,” he admits, because one time he opened a video of some wild fucking sex orgy and let it play through the car sound system. The driver was, like, at least forty and probably wasn’t surprised by any of the noises that came out at an excessively loud volume, but he still got reported. 

“Where are you?” she asks, tired and weary but always getting the job done. There’s a reason she’s his first call. She’s also his last call. He peers at the name of the coffee bar, backwards from where he’s standing, but reads it out to her. He wonders if she’ll send a car or if she’ll come herself. He knows which he’d rather. 

He can hear her keyboard clacking, knows she’s looking the place up. He wonders how embarrassing the website is. Gerri’s snort tells him that he should never have accepted the invitation to meet here. Not that he remembers accepting the invitation. Or setting up the meeting. Or anything about the meeting. Except that he’s here, and there’s a cold mug of Frida Kahlo coffee on a table behind him. 

“Be ready to leave in ten minutes,” she says, clipped and professional and he wonders if Karolina or somebody is in the office with her. He imagines her laughing about him with other people, about how stupid he is, how silly. He feels his dick twitch at the thought and forces himself to think of Kendall’s nose hairs instead. 

“I’m ready to leave now.” It sounds whiny to his ears, the petulant child he’s no longer trying to be. He’s at least moved up to acne-ridden teen. 

“Apologies but the Kellman Cab Company has to respect the laws of time and space.” That means she’s coming, that she’ll be in the car. So she probably doesn’t think he’s the worst person on the planet. Maybe she’ll take him to that bar in that hotel that she likes. They went there once and she drank whiskey and he had vodka and he felt like a fucking adult. 

“Ten minutes,” he agrees, not like there’s a chance he’d say no. Gerri hangs up without saying goodbye. 

He shoves his hands in his pockets and waits for her to come.

**three.**

Boredom takes on different shapes. Roman likes to think he’s become a connoisseur. 

There’s the boredom that comes because everything just fucking is so idiotic and he doesn’t want to pay attention to it. The kind of boredom that gets him called “insouciant” (a word he looks up later, but figured out the meaning from context clues) and kicked out of meetings because he doesn’t even want to hold his head up. It’s what leads him to smoke joints at ten o’clock in the morning and spend all night listening to music that’s too loud. 

There’s the boredom that comes because he already knows the answers to every question being asked, and doesn’t know why everyone is gathered around a shitty table to talk through problems that have clear solutions. He doesn’t want to waste time or energy on it, he doesn’t have the patience for it. He’s never learned patience, never had to. 

And there’s boredom because no one’s paying attention to him. Where his antics don’t get a rise, like everyone’s had a secret agreement to let him spin out until he can’t anymore. That’s the worst kind, like he’s not even a blip on anyone’s radar, like he couldn’t be less important to anyone. 

It’s been the latter kind of day, spinning in an office chair, twiddling thumbs and staring at the ceiling, looking out the window. He pulls down the shades to his office, shutting himself off from the rest of the floor. Not that anyone would even fucking notice because it wouldn’t matter if he was in the room or not. Heads all fucking bowed over computers like they’re working on some top-secret shit instead of just navigating some high-level deal with so many clauses and addendums that it won’t matter to anything in the long run. 

With the blinds down, Roman calls Gerri, contemplates seeing if she’ll get him off while they’re both at the office. Berating him is pretty much par for the course on the top floor of Waystar Royco, she could get away with it. 

“What’s up, Ger-Bear?” he says before she can say anything, before she can wearily ask what he wants. Sometimes it’s nice to get the jump on her. He thinks she likes to be kept on her toes too; she hasn’t changed her number yet, she doesn’t run away from him in hallways. There was that one time by the elevator, but he’s pretty sure she just wanted to get a nice view of his ass. 

She just scoffs at the nickname she didn’t ask for. “Not enough to keep you occupied today, Roman? Never mind that three million-dollar deals are being negotiated by different departments of _your_ company as we speak?” 

“I got kicked out of negotiations.” He spins his chair around to the left, to the right, feet dangling, just catching the floor. 

“So you’re sulking,” Gerri says. He can’t deny that. The boredom that comes with being overlooked is a boredom that makes him peevish. Wanting to prove himself to a brick wall. “Why don’t you push your bottom lip back in and _do_ something?” 

She wants him to be better. For whatever reason, she thinks he can be. And, unlike every other person he knows, she’s trying with him. That doesn’t stop him from smirking and asking, “What do _you_ think I should do, Gerri?” 

“Oh, fuck off, not in the office.” She sees right through him, always. “I mean keep your head up in meetings and pay attention. Even if, and maybe _especially_ if, no one is paying attention to you.” He wishes they could be in more meetings together, that he could always sit next to her. Sometimes she lets him play footsie until she digs her nails into his thigh to make him stop. Those are always good meetings.

“Wear a tie and shine my shoes and be a fucking good little boy?” he sneers back, because he can’t always stop himself. 

“No one would ever mistake you for a good boy, Roman. Not even when you were five.” He remembers pulling Shiv’s hair and pantsing Kendall at a dinner party. He remembers holding Gerri’s hand and pulling her to come look at something, a big pile of deer shit in a field or something. She didn’t make fun and she didn’t yell, she just squatted near it and said, “I guess that deer’s been eating a lot of berries.” 

Roman thinks she’s probably a very good mother. 

“While I’m keeping my head up, am I also allowed to tell people when they’re being fucking idiots?” He spins his chair back so he’s facing his desk. 

“I don’t think anyone would dream of being able to cure you of that habit.” She sounds distracted now, like an email came in or her phone’s buzzing with text messages against her ear. “I just mean that you need to be an active participant who’s not willfully fucking shit up just because you’re bored.” He doesn’t have a comeback for that. 

“What do you do during really boring meetings that make you want to run up against one of those really big windows to see if it’ll break?” Not that that’s a concrete example of a thought he’s had during at least five meetings or anything. 

“I fantasize about our deeply sexual relationship, culminating in visions of you eating me out, of course,” she says, so drily he almost chokes on his spit. “I doodle, Roman. I pretend I’m taking copious notes. I look at my email. What the fuck do you think?” 

“I think you fantasize about me at least a little.” He feels like pouting again. 

“Go knock on the door to a conference room, get yourself into one of the negotiations and at least act like a human, for ten minutes. I think you’ve got it in you.” He can practically hear the eyeroll. “And then you can come over tonight and make all my wildest dreams come true.” 

“Sarcasm isn’t an attractive quality, Gerri.” That’s a lie.

“And yet here you still are,” she says, and all he’s left with is a dial tone.

**four.**

The servers at Waystar Royco get hacked. Roman doesn’t know the specifics, the IT geeks used too many words and talked too fast, and all he _does_ know is that it’s bad and the internet is already gleefully reading through the many, _many_ shitty emails Logan Roy has sent over the years. 

He wonders how long it’ll be until they’ve had their fill of the patriarch and start going through his offspring. There are more interesting things to uncover on the servers than his emails about Frank’s tiny dick and how Kendall’s a piece of shit. 

The line’s already ringing by the time he realizes he’s called Gerri, because that’s just what he does when there’s a crisis. He wants to know what she thinks, how she feels, what her plan of attack is. She always has a plan. There’s something comforting in that. She’s like a fucking seeing-eye dog or a security blanket. 

“Do you think a phone call from you falls under my top priorities this morning, Roman?” He knows she’s been here for hours, that she probably got called the second the ransom message came in. He wonders how many calls she’s already had to take today, how many fires she’s already put out. Smokey the Gerri. 

“Did we ever email about fucking? Me pushing you up against a wall? That time in Spain when we shared a hotel room? Any of that?” He knows the answer to this, but he still wants to say the words, to know that she can hear him say them. He knows he’s texted her things but who hasn’t? And he thinks his phone is safe. 

“You mean did you ever email me inappropriate things on your workplace account?” Yes, that’s what he means. She’d never email him anything like that. She is careful, so fucking careful all the time.

“Or like marriage proposals. Whatever. Maybe that was only that one time.” She’s never given him an answer to that, not a yes or a no, just a tight-lipped smile, the kind that only he gets, because she likes him, whatever else happens. She likes him, at least a little. 

“No, I think we’ve been pretty circumspect. Which, as you’ll remember, was my idea.” She’s doing something else, he can tell. Probably scrolling through a twitter thread Karolina sent over, or reading an email from some underling who’s sent wild messages they’re worried about being revealed. 

“Yes, we know you’re a genius and we all bow down to you, whatever whatever.” He’s wanted to come clean about whatever it is they’re doing for a while now, mentioning it to her over drinks, hoping that whiskey softens her to his cause, or bringing it up while he’s resting between her thighs, that an orgasm is enough to make her see the light.

“Please repeat after me, Roman: I will not use company scandal to reveal the fact that I’ve been screwing general counsel.” She’s stern and he can picture her at her desk, shoulder keeping her phone at her ear while she types with her hands, eyes squinting slightly at the screen even though she has her glasses on. 

“Yeah, yeah I will not blah blah blah. What happens if people find out anyway?” He kneels on his couch, hand resting on the back, fingers drumming against the fabric. It’s what he’s been dancing towards, trying to gauge her mood. 

“How would people find out?” She focused now, dangerous, steel in her mouth, and he can picture that too. 

“Well, is it just sent emails that got out? Or, like. Anything on my email server?” He’s pretty sure he knows the answer to this too. 

“Are you saying you have _drafts_ of emails about screwing me up against the windows of your office?” This might be the angriest he’s heard her sound, and he’s glad there’s walls and floors in between them, that he’ll be able to see her coming if she rounds the corner to his office. Doesn’t know how he’ll escape, but at least he’ll be prepared. Sort of. 

“Not...not that, _specifically_ , probably.” But maybe. That is something he thinks about. A lot. A harder mess to clean up than the first time he jacked off in this office. Ass-prints on the window. Whatever. 

“Roman.” Warning, careful, a viper about to strike. 

“I get _bored_. But I don’t send them! Why does it even matter anyway?” He knows why, he _knows_. He knows what she’ll say, the talk she gives him every time. Bias and nepotism and favors and she’s a woman in the workplace no matter how long she’s worked here and weaknesses and ammunition and whatever the fuck else. He’s heard it all. 

“It matters, Roman.” There’s tiredness in her voice, weariness. Like she’s going to give up. He doesn’t like the sound of it, not even a little. “I’ll figure it out. They might not even get read.” That’s a lie. Someone, somewhere, on a forum on the corner of the internet, is reading every single line of leaked content. Someone, somewhere, will read about how he wants to spend the night in Gerri’s bed, how he thinks about splaying her across a conference table, how his shirts smell like her detergent now. 

He writes emails about fucking her, but he writes emails about other things too.

He thinks about the photo that was in the WSJ a few weeks back, Logan in the front, waving to someone, and behind him, blurry but still visible, Gerri, her head bent, a smile on her face, as she listened to something Roman had to say. He imagines that blown up on tabloids, on blogs, all the tiny moments of affection that don’t look like anything on their own built up to tell a story. 

“I don’t care if people know,” he says, small and meek, cowed in the face of her unhappiness. It’s the only thing he can give her. The simple truth that he cares about her, held out in front of the world.

“I know,” she says, and hangs up the phone. 

**five.**

Roman gets sent off to England. Some bullshit with some company over there, some bullshit to appease his mother. He doesn’t even get to bring Shiv or Kendall with as a buffer. He doesn’t get Gerri to protect him. Not even fucking Frank to do whatever it is he does. In the end, perhaps it’s better he’s alone. He’s not sure what he’d do if he had to watch Caroline and Gerri have conversations about him over dinner. Keel over and die probably. Explode. Something like that.

He stays in her giant fucking house with too many rooms, and can go days without seeing another person in the hallways. He didn’t think he’d ever miss people being around, but he’s been wrong before. 

Caroline arranges a dinner party, tries to parade Roman around like a poodle, but he’s never been very good at being what anyone expects him to be. Ends up telling some Duke of somewhere to stick his dick in the pudding and flicks an olive off the table. He gets politely invited to leave the table, a child sent to bed without supper. 

He doesn’t like it in England, where it’s damp and strange and he never feels comfortable on the other side of the road. His banishment does not have an expiration date, and part of him worries he’ll never see New York again. He suddenly craves the sound of an American accent, of anything familiar. He’d kill for a hot dog.

When he calls Gerri, it’s because she’s the only person he’s sure will take his call.

“At least the timezone works in your favor now,” Gerri says when she answers, and Roman slouches almost instinctively, remembering the time he was in Japan and called her at two in the morning. But she answered anyway, and they ended up talking about her honeymoon tour of Eastern Asia. He brought her back a postcard. 

“I didn’t wake you up from your mid-afternoon nap?” He doesn’t think Gerri naps. Not that he’s ever seen. Too busy working on weekends and sitting with her laptop on the couch in the evenings. He wonders if she’ll nap when she retires. He wonders if she’ll retire. 

“Not today, no. You did get me out of an uncomfortable run-in with Bill who won’t just fucking roll over and die, apparently, and is wandering around the building today.” He hears the sound of her office door closing, the click of the lock turning. He tries to do the math in his head - it’s four o’clock where she is? Office starting to thin out, all the interns who won’t get job offers, the suits who set up after-work drinks and want to get a head start. 

“You’d rather talk to me than Bill? That’s so sweet,” he simpers and hears her snort. 

“I’d rather talk to a naked mole-rat than Bill, you’re not that special.” But he knows he _is_ that special. That he’s probably the only person on the planet who’s heard Gerri say ‘naked mole-rat.’

“Mommy dearest said I embarrassed her in front of her friends.” Whatever other qualities his mother possesses, Caroline has the most intimidating sibilant whisper of anyone he’s ever met, and the way she hissed at him in the hallway is enough to keep him locked away in his third floor room. 

“That sounds...correct. Did you start a food fight? Strip naked and do a dance?” There’s humor in her voice, the sound he loves best, because he knows she’s smiling, can see the quirk of her lips in his mind’s eye. Simultaneously hates that it makes his stomach clench a little. He never asked for feelings. 

“I may have intimated it was more productive for one of her friends to fuck the plum pudding than his wife.” He tries to say it airily, but he’s hoping she’ll laugh, that she won’t just shake her head and say “Oh, Roman,” like she’s disappointed. Like she’s embarrassed too. 

“Was it the Duke of Wiltshire?” How she knows is a mystery Roman will never solve, but she always, _always_ , knows. “They’d probably both be happier if he fucked the plum pudding.” 

“But then what would we have for dessert?” He flops down on his bed, staring up at the canopy, wonders if anyone ever has to dust the top of it. Glad he’s never suffered from allergies.

“You’re telling me Caroline only had one dessert prepared?” It amazes him, still, how well she knows the whole family, every inch of them. He forgets, sometimes (but not often), how long she’s been a part of his life. Were Gerri and Caroline friends? Does she still talk to her? Questions he isn’t sure he wants to know the answer to. Questions he’ll still probably ask some day. 

“Is everything different without me there?” he asks, changing tacks with a speed that Gerri must be used to by now. “Like are there even still skyscrapers? Do you have hoverboards? Are you the head of the company?”

“Everything is very much the same, but maybe a little bit more boring.” It’s a gift, from Gerri, that truth, that bare-faced honesty. So many times her words get caught up in lawyer speak and trying to toe the line, getting what she wants without giving anything away. He likes it when she opens herself a little bit more. It’s how he knows for certain that he’s special. 

“You’re probably horny too, what with your paramour across an ocean.” Neither of them will say anything straight out, nothing unvarnished. 

“Yes, Roman, you are the only thing on this planet that can satisfy my cravings.” Sarcasm and truth, wrapped up together.

“Wanna have phone sex like a couple of normos?” He doesn’t even know how he’d start. They’re a far cry from beration through a bathroom door, but that’s what makes this harder too. 

“I’m at work,” she reminds him, always the rule, though it’s common knowledge among employees what they get up to. Whether or not the average drudge wants to think about Roman and Gerri get up to is a different matter.

“That makes it sexier, right? Forbidden love or whatever?” He knows it’s a losing battle, but he’s rewarded with her chuckle and that’s almost as good. He can jerk off into the leftover pudding after everyone leaves to the memory of that chuckle. 

“We’ll talk later, Rome,” she says, soft and sweet, and hangs up the phone on her promise.

**plus one.**

His phone lights up, the brightest thing in the room. He rolls over in bed, sees Gerri’s name on the screen instead of Gerri in bed next to him. 

“‘Lo,” he says, his voice rough from sleep, and he thinks about saying “What do you want?” but knows how she is about jokes in the morning. 

“I had an early meeting,” she says, “and I didn’t want to wake you.” Her voice always wraps around him, soft and gentle, like a blanket, like a scarf. 

“And yet somehow, I’m awake now.” He squints at the digital clock on her side of the bed, bright red numbers staring back at him. 

“Well, it’s six a.m. You should be awake anyway. I was just…” She trails off. Sometimes she’s uncertain with him, like she’s still not sure it’s happening, like she still doesn’t know why. “I just wanted to say hello. And good morning. And now you can go back to sleep and be late for your nine o’clock meeting with the people from Stearns.” She hangs up quickly, shutting off the intimacy, and he closes his eyes, a smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> the duke of wiltshire isn't a real thing, we don't need to talk about it


End file.
